This time the story is not about Google’s upcoming move into Goose Creek. The national news agencies are following a story that began Saturday night during a routine traffic stop. Two men are being held after an explosive device was found in their car after they were stopped for speeding.
Read the full story on USAToday.com.
I saw a news headline titled Arkansas couple welcomes 17th child and knew before I read it that it was referring to the Duggar family. I have seen their story on TV and have read about them on the Internet. “They asked God to bless them with as many children as He saw fit in His timing.“ That is exactly what God is doing.
This is a tough subject for some folks, and some folks are pretty mean in their responses to the Duggar’s family planning practices. Adam’s Blog has a post up highlighting some of the negative responses. I will not grace those blogs with another link, but will instead ask you to check out Adam’s Blog if you are interested in how cruel people can be on this subject.
I think the Duggars have an awesome attitude towards family planning.
Congratulations Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar on the birth of your baby girl!
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed suit against BurnLounge and former University of South Carolina football player Rob DeBoer has been named in the suit. BurnLounge and DeBoer are being accused of running a pyramid scheme and misrepresenting the earnings investors made with the company.
My personal experience with BurnLounge is much like that of SC Attorney General Henry McMaster. According to The State newspaper, “McMaster suspected the company [Burnlounge] of being a pyramid scheme after hearing a sales pitch for the company with his wife.”
A friend recently tried to recruit me into BurnLounge. He had asked me to visit a website called yourburnteam.com, call a toll free number for more information, and then attend a presentation by former USC quarterback turned attorney Todd Ellis. Ellis is mentioned in the article linked above. I visited the site and called the number. Then I proceeded to warn my friend via email by saying, “This program is a multi-level marketing (MLM) strategy at the roots.”
BurnLounge retailers are expected to get customers simply due to having a personal relationship with folks. The customer buys music much like they would on iTunes. This lawsuit is likely resulting from the questions raised from potential retails like reading thins like this:
The investment is $430 per year in U.S. dollars, plus $14.95 per month. This may change for different geographies to reflect local economic realities. ($609.40 per year total with no guarantee) The upside is almost unbelievable, and Australia and Canada are the first countries that we are moving into.. In the first year, we had over 50 people earn over $100K, and several who earned from $400K to $600K in personal earnings. The amount of personal income that you create is up to you, but the opportunity to achieve life-changing income is real and attainable. (These bullet points were taken from the “Investment vs Return” section of a promotional email I received in late April 2007. My emphasis added in bold.)
Those talking about downloading the most music say they use torrents and P2P solutions. Those who buy their music fair and square from iTunes or Walmart.com have already busted past the initial impulse music purchase after acquiring a new digital music player for the first time. After a brief informal survey of friends using services like iTunes, I found that all fell squarely in the middle of the estimates made by David Caulton, a Zune contributer as reported on the Electronics Design Strategy News web site. David says:
“iPod owners initially buy 30 tracks in the first three months, but then drop off to one track per month or less on average.” Based on the above information and a couple of things that grabbed my attention in the “Back-end Compensation Tutorial Residual Sales” presentation on the myburnteam.com site, I was led to my decision to not participate. -Single orders totaling less than $9.90 DO NOT count towards your sales quota These bullets were taken directly from the “Back-end Compensation Tutorial Residual Sales” presentation on the Burn Team site. To see it for yourself, go to http://www.yourburnteam.com and enter as a Guest. Click on the menu icon once the Rob DeBoer flash video starts. You will find a section called “Compensation Training” that includes this “Back-end Compensation Tutorial Residual Sales” presentation. Oh, this presentation does not play well with Firefox. What all this tells me is that if the numbers give by David Caulton are even close, then revenue for a BurnLounge retailer from music downloads will be nonexistent after the first month a person joins. As a web site and blog builder, I can not image gambling $430 to see if I might be able to generate some revenue in much the same way I am already doing so with affiliate relationships that are FREE. I spend less than that per year in total web hosting expenses. I believe that BurnLounge is preying on the ignorance of those who have never built a blog or web site before. Intensionally? I don’t know. The amount of revenue a burn page retailer will generate is directly proportional to how effective they are at delivering visitors to their web pages. Any experienced web site owner will tell you that drawing traffic is not always a cakewalk, unless you are [uhm] something like a former college football celebrity with the name recognition that might be able to immediately draw a ton of Internet traffic. After you run through the references in this story, if you find that you just can not live without becoming a BurnLounge retailer, then I will hook you up with my friend. On the other hand, if you want to make money on the Internet the old fashion way, then just drop a comment in this post or send me an email (check the about page). I will be glad to help you get started for way less than $609 per year.
-A single order with (1) 99 cent track DOES NOT count towards your sales quota
-A single order with 10 or more 99 cent tracks DOES count towards your sales quota
Are you a low country super geek? Then Google has a job for you.
Can you make computers do amazing things? Are you excited about designing and developing new applications that really make a difference? Google is looking for engineers with the programming skills to change the world. Join Google engineering and help us build products that are used by millions everyday.
Google has posted 4 openings for the up coming Goose Creek, SC data center under the above general category description. The job listings include:
Read my related posts on the new Google Data Center:
Computerworld on Goose Creek
Google Creek, SC
Is Google Going South?
A Blue Angels F/A-18 jet crashed this afternoon in Beaufort, SC. The Blue Angels have been participating in a two day air show at Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station this weekend in conjunction with Low Country Blues Festival.
I am grieved to see a fellow aviator die. Initial reports say that no one else was hurt. This is a miracle given the fact that this jet went down in a residential neighborhood in Beaufort, SC.
It’s not like me to miss an air show in the local area. My participation in the Charleston GFI Alumni Picnic had me busy today. I took my son Riley to see the Blue Angels last spring at Charleston Air Force Base, but this is one show that I am thankful I did not take my son too see. I would not want to explain to my Little Flying Ace what happened to this pilot and his plane. Riley has enjoyed flying since his first flight at 11 months of age. I got to experience one of my favorite moments as a dad that day. I got to pilot the plane as my son took his first airplane ride.
It sounds like President Bush is getting heat to fire a top general in addition to the calls to fire US Attorney General Gonzales. I did not know citizens actually wrote and sent letters like the one shown above on Congress.org, but this guy is letting it all hang out. A concerned veteran want President Bush to fire General North. I do believe there is some fishy stuff going on with this case in Afghanistan, but I do not know all the facts and will hold my personal opinion to myself regarding General North.
I previously wrote about my friend Stacey Brown’s husband being charged due to a run in with a Blackwater employee named Jimmy Bergeron. The investigating officer found and reported to General North on suspicions of evidence tampering and witness bribing. There has been little more said publicly since the Brown was cleared of the charges.
I have also run across more information on the alleged victim in this case thanks to IragSlogger. Jim Bergeron is the President and founder of a Canadian company E.P.D. Tactics Inc according to his web site. The web site reports that he is a former Marine with a BS in Criminology who has worked for as many as 12 U.S. Government agencies.
My related posts:
Charleston AFB Officer Cleared of Charges
Air Force vs Blackwater - Round II
Air Force vs Blackwater
A story has been posted on Computerworld.com written by Patrick Thibodeau titled Google building data centers at fast-food franchise speed. The story provides some great details on Google’s data center strategy. A recent announcement by Governor Mark Sanford and Google confirmed rumors about Google’s move into Goose Creek, SC are in fact true. At least one local Charleston newspaper blog got a little pessimistic when a Google data center site was announced in North Carolina before the Goose Creek site was confirmed.
The Computerworld article concludes with some comments taken from a telephone interview on Monday evening with yours truly. Mr. Thibodeau even gave The Land of Ozz and little link love in his story.
You might be able to hear the gears turning if you listen closely enough. I have several great blog stories churning, but that is not what makes this week odd. Odd item number one was that I got an email from a guy who wants to run an ad on one of my blogs. He offered to pay me to run an ad on a single blog post that is almost two years old. Oh, and the url that he provided is remnants of an old Blogger post that has sense been replace with WordPress.
The other odd thing that happened is that an editor/writer for a very popular technology publication contacted me today. He is doing a story about Google’s move into Goose Creek, SC and wanted to have me weigh in on the story as a Goose Creek resident and IT professional. My buddy Trace Pupke has the latest on Google’s confirmed plans to move into the creek. I will link to the story when and if it is published online and as long as it does not make me sound like a dweeb.
Oh yeah. Here is another oddity. Even though my number of blog posts per some amount of time ratio is way down, I have just seen the highest traffic month on this site ever. The number of unique visitors per day is well over 1,000 with March being the highest month ever with 0ver 40,000 visitors. Not that I am counting or anything. Right? This blog still gets the highest percentage of the traffic on the hoei.com and the hankosborne.com domains. The hankosborne.com domain name is currently pointed to the same IP address as hoei.com.
The Air Force has dismissed charges filed against two of its own lieutenant colonels that could have ended their careers and landed them in jail.
Charges against Lt. Col. Gary W. Brown and Lt. Col. Christopher R. Hall were dropped “after careful consideration of all the evidence in the case, to include the Article 32 report,” according to a statement. The officers, who faced lengthy jail terms and abrupt ends to their military careers, were accused of assaulting Blackwater USA contractor Jimmy Bergeron on Sept. 19 during an altercation outside the Afghan Defense Ministry in Kabul. Source: Air Force Times
This was taken from an article in the Air Force Times reported earlier this week stating that Lt. Gen. Gary North did dismiss the official charges against the two officers, but the article failed to mention that Lt. Col. Brown, a C-17 pilot stationed at Charleston Air Force Base was issued a letter of reprimand (LOR). A letter of reprimand on a lieutenant colonel’s record can be loosely compared to a bankruptcy on the average American’s credit record. Brown’s hope for advancement in the ranks of the U.S. Air Force are basically over as a result of the LOR. Lt. Col. Brown’s wife Stacey said in an email to friends and family “that at any point North can change his mind and proceed with another article 32 or court martial.” This administrative action by the general was not taken lightly by Brown’s Attorney.
“Brown’s attorney, Charles Gittins, expressed shock at the reprimand. In a letter to North Wednesday, he said, I can only assume that you failed to read the detailed, fact-filled, and thorough report prepared by Lt. Col. Leslea Pickle as her report is directly contrary to your conclusions. Frankly, if anyone is a discredit to the Armed Forces, I am constrained to conclude it is you.” Source: Examiner.com
The Examiner story goes on to point out a statement made by the investigating officer Lt. Col. Leslea Pickle that sheds light on the seriousness of the events that took place on September 19, 2006 in Afghanistan. Pickle says that Lt. Col. Brown, “demonstrated a calm, collected demeanor during the whole incident. Another person might have been ‘trigger-happy’ and shot Mr. Bergeron.” The alleged victim in this case, Mr. Jimmy Bergeron was serving a civilian “in Afghanistan under a Blackwater drug-interdiction training contract with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration” according to Hamptonroads.com. The Hammptonroads.com article includes a picture of Bergeron and along the two lieutenant colonels involved in this case.
Mr. Bergeron was not present at the article 32 hearing for the two lieutenant colonels despite the fact that he was the star witness and alleged victim in this case. Other suspicious activity noted throughout this case was highlighted in the Investigating Officer’s Report: Lt. Col. Gary Brown (***WARNING: THIS PDF REPORT CONTAINS OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE***). This report was provided to General North led to the dismissal of the charges and contains several allegations of evidence manipulation and witness tampering. Blackwater USA and Brown’s attorney are exchanging blows over over who might be behind this alleged frame job that was exposed during this case.
Lt. Col. Christopher Hall received a letter of counseling as a result of this case. This is a milder administrative action than what Brown got. Hall was the second Air Force officer involved in this case. There are no reports of administrative action or charges being filed against the Blackwater USA employee Jimmy Bergeron.
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